Tyler’s U10 boys soccer team is undefeated. UNDEFEATED. They are 16-0-1.

This is the pic of them after we won the season title.

After winning, we were then sent to go to a tournament this last weekend for the region title where they played other teams that won their division from other cities in our area. The tournament works on a points system where you get 6 points for a win, one point for each goal (up to 3 goals), and one point for a shut out. That’s a total of 10 points possible per game.

At the end of Saturday, we had played 2 games and scored 29 points. Sunday they had 3 games and THEY WON all three, ending with a FIRST PLACE WIN consisting of 4 shut outs and 49 out of a possible 50 points!

Now, while I’m in Uganda, they go to a section tournament where they play other kids who all won their region. CRAZY times.

My favorite memory though, I will not forget for a long time. Truth is I was really kinda praying for second place since I knew I couldn’t coach them in the next tournament and didn’t want to miss it. But in the heat of the match, I really did want them to win and was coaching with that goal in mind. So when they won I just shouted for joy for them and started crying and high fiving my players who were all running and screaming towards the side line in victory. Then I looked to the left and my son Tyler, who was in goal came running up with his arms spread wide wanting a hug and screaming, “We did it dad! We did it!” As we hugged he said, “thanks for coaching me dad. you’re the best.”

He has probably thanked me 4 out of 5 practices and games for coaching him. I’m so thankful for this time together and so excited for these boys. They earned it. I am blessed to be a part of it.

Lots of Sundays, I wonder if what we/I do in youth ministry matters or if anyone is even listening. By way of comparison, if I teach in the main service, in one week I’ll get 4x the feedback from adults that I get from 4 months in student ministries.

So, last week, Sarah was teaching and that freed me up so that during the second service, I could move around to observe some stuff I never do from up front. So I was hanging out in the back when I looked out the door to catch this scene I caught on my iphone.

THE FOREGROUND: our worship team, who have already sat through the service once are playing their guitars outside until their role in this service is up. Between and after services they have been collecting donations in Noah’s guitar case for the 4 children our ministry sponsors around the world and some for our adoption too. Something they have done on their own initiative for fun. Much to my surprise, they’ve raised over a hundred dollars in about 4 weeks time.

THE BACKGROUND: Megan is helping an elderly woman walk to the video cafe to watch the service on a big screen. I wish you were watching a video instead of just seeing a picture because that is 20 minutes of walking for about 25 yard walk. No, I’m not exaggerating. When Megan came back in I asked, “How was that?” She said, “That was the slowest walk I’ve ever taken in my life.” I was so proud of her, she offered her arm to that elderly woman and stopped serving in our program to do so.

I praise God for windows of direct or indirect encouragement. It’s what keeps me going back to work each day. Some of our students really do get it.

Are evidently “Stuff” and “Going”.

I had a friend send me a link to this site where you can put in a url or group of words and it will create a word cloud for you.

Here’s the one it made from this blog. I secretly hoped it would have had “adoption” or “kids” and “God” as the biggest ones, but nope. I’d expand on why I think the program is lame and twitter should not be so big, nor so centered, and why the cloud is not right, but I’ve got to get going, I have lots of stuff to do.

Looking for a good Christmas present? Look no further than one that gives to 3 places:

1. you help Ugandan women who work in an orphanage to make a little more of a living to feed their own families.

2. you help us raise the money it will take to adopt 2 kids.

3. you help a friend or loved one have a sweet piece of authentic African jewelry.

You can see how they are made in this post here. Click on the pictures below to increase their size for better viewing.

THIS WAS OUR SECOND BATCH OF LIKE 200 PIECES AS OF 2 DAYS AGO:

Lots are gone now, because we have sold a grip of them in the last 2 days! What a blessing to so many people! But we have 2 styles left as they are going fast:

We have really long ones, they are meant to be wrapped two or 3 times around your neck. They are about 50 inches long and sell for $25 each.

We also have some more standard length ones. They are 22-24ish inches long and sell for $14 each or two for $25.

These are the bracelets, though we are all out of them, we can make you some out of the necklaces by re-stringing them smaller for you if that’s the bigger need. We sell them for $8 each or two for $15.

If you want one, here’s how we can do this.

1. Email Shannon to tell her what type and color you are interested in. We’ll then confirm and set aside what you want. Finally, we’ll figure out a shipping cost that will suit your needs.

2. Then you can use the newly created pay pal donate button on the right of this blog to make a donation or send us a check. Once we have that stuff, we’ll shoot it off to you and Christmas wishes will be flowin.

Last night in our small groups we talked about persecution. I was sharing some learnings from my seminary class, trying to put some feet on the ground from all my reading and around our table at dinner before our discussino, monty python skits of all things came up in discussion.

This launched into a great bit of random comedy as we repeated pointless lines. Always a good time there.

Then this morning I found 3 these two nuggets:

1. Monty Python has created a youtube channel. This promo video they made for it is hilarious.

2. They have almost 30 clips up, of which, this scene on stoning I could have used last night. I will definitely be using some of this in a service soon. Good funny stuff.